Opinion: The tax cut isn’t trickling down to workers

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act isn’t just wasteful, it’s harming the economy and workers

By

AndyGreen

GalenHendricks

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The tax cut isn’t helping anyone except the very rich.

Nearly one year ago, the Republican Congress passed and the president signed the controversial and partisan Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). Proponents sold this law as a middle-class tax cut that would dramatically increase business investment, raise wages, and simplify the tax code.

But more than 11 months later, there is little sign that any of these promises will be fulfilled. Instead, it is increasingly clear that the tax law isn’t just a wasteful giveaway — it is harming the economy, workers, and the U.S. fiscal position in important ways.

Real wage growth has been largely nonexistent for the average worker since the tax bill passed. Production nonsupervisory workers only saw a 0.2% year-over-year increase in average hourly earnings last quarter.

The people who did benefit, however, made out like bandits. Analysts from the Tax Policy Center estimate that the top 1% of earners will receive a larger share of the tax cut this year than the entire bottom 60% combined, with the average one-percenter receiving a windfall of more than $50,000 — a result of the enormous tax cuts for corporations and large pass-through businesses, which are disproportionately owned by the wealthy.

And so far, it appears that corporations are passing along their tax breaks to wealthy shareholders, primarily by buying back stock. In fact, as real after-tax corporate profits shot up by more than 16% in the third quarter of 2018, stock buybacks are on track to reach $1 trillion — a record high — by the end of the year.

Sadly, the TCJA’s approach to corporate taxes fuels three damaging economic trends. The first is corporate short-termism, as there is new evidence that executives tend to cash out their stocks in buybacks rather than show confidence in the long-term growth of their companies.

Second, TCJA cash is fueling a record year for mergers and acquisitions, as the largest corporations are gobbling up competitors and further concentrating economic power. The negative impacts of excessive mergers and declining competition are increasingly widespread, harming workers’ wages, family farmers, innovation, and overall economic opportunity.

Proponents of the bill claimed that it would give typical families a $4,000 boost in real wages after a few years, on the theory that a boom in business investment would increase productivity, with the gains ultimately trickling down to workers.

But there is no sign of any investment boom. For workers to see real gains, we would need to see much higher and sustained investment. In addition, workers would need the power to bargain for their share of increased productivity — but the Trump administration has been doing everything in its power to undermine workers.

All signs point to a law that, as predicted, featured a massive tax cut to wealthy individuals and large corporations and hardly any benefits to working- and middle-class Americans.

The costs could run even higher if well-heeled individuals and businesses exploit the law’s many loopholes and gaming opportunities more than originally anticipated.

What this does is to use federal borrowing capacity — itself an important national resource — without addressing any of the biggest challenges we face in America today, like stagnant wages and struggling regions and communities, structural inequality, deteriorating infrastructure, climate change, and more.

Rather than solve real problems for working-class Americans and communities left behind, the TCJA takes federal tax dollars and throws them down the drain because trickle-down economics does not work.

That’s not only wasteful, but with millions of Americans still facing job loss and dislocation, it’s deeply wrong. Precisely when we need new, bold approaches to fiscal policy, targeted workforce initiatives, and other investments to counter the middle-class squeeze that working families are facing across America, the TCJA tells ordinary tax-paying Americans that their pain is simply a distraction from the business of helping the largest and most profitable companies.

To add insult to injury, these deficit hikes also increase pressure to cut critically important programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and even nutrition assistance for poor families. Even before the law was passed, we saw members of Congress making their intentions clear — that they intended to help pay for their bill by cutting assistance programs that help families in need and working and middle-class families rely on.

Those who voted for the TCJA made their priorities clear, and fiscal responsibility is not one of them.

Federal fiscal capacity is a national asset that should be managed in a prudent way and deployed to make the lives of working Americans better over the long-term. Tax policy should increase opportunity and reduce inequality, while shoring up fiscal and financial stability.

Trump and the last Congress got it backwards on all fronts. The good news is that another path is possible: a progressive approach to fiscal responsibility can rebuild communities, restore opportunity, and reduce inequality. In the coming year, let us focus on that.

Andy Green is managing director for economic policy at the Center for American Progress. Galen Hendricks is special assistant for economic policy at CAP.

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